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Getting Started
The Two Parts of Naked Places
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Naked Places is a naturist resource that has two complementary elements: first, this website; second, Google Earth files. To get the most out of Naked Places, you should keep your web browser and Google Earth open at the same time and bounce back from one to the other.
Why two elements? Google Earth is an unbeatable resource for making locations come alive. You can zoom in and out and learn the lay of the land of the places you want to visit. However, relying on Google Earth alone is a little like trying to look something up in a book without a table of contents or an index. That is where the website comes in. It provides a more linear format to help make sense of things.
This website is, in essence, a skeleton. Its purpose is to organize and summarize naked places in different parts of the world. When you see a specific site you want to learn more about, that's when you jump into Google Earth to get all the details. Google Earth puts the meat on the bones.
If you have never used Google Earth, you'll definitely want to spend some time reading the next section. Even if you are a Google Earth junkie, the next section will explain what our placemarks mean. The remainder of this section focuses on the content of this website.
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Layout and Coding
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Suppose you plan to go to France and you want to find out about nude beaches in Bretagne, which is better known to English speakers as Brittany. Start with the red bar that goes across the top of each page of this website. At present, that red bar has three options: North America, Europe and European Saunas. Click around a bit and you'll see that we've listed Brittany under "Northern France." There are 19 nude beaches listed under Brittany, which are divided by sub-region and listed in geographic order along the coast. Since there are so many nude beaches from which to choose, we've made brief comments under some of them to steer you towards the ones that are especially popular, pretty or notable in other ways. You'll also notice that there are four commercial establishments listed under Brittany: three family-oriented naturist retreats and one clothing-optional guesthouse that advertises to a gay clientele. The coding beside the name of each establishment lets you know that three of these four places have website information available in English.
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| TEXT COLOR CODES |
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NUDE BEACHES are highlighted in red.
COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENTS are highlighted in blue.
LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES for each site are highlighted
in green.
Anything in blue is linked to that establishment's website. All links open up in a new
window.
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| LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES |
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| | As mentioned above, this website is designed to summarize rather than give specifics. When you are ready for
more details about a particular site, then you are ready to jump into Google Earth and "fly" there, and the best way to
do that is by entering the latitude and longitude coordinates of the place you want to visit.
Coordinates can be expressed three ways:
| Decimal Degrees | | 45.6613, -1.1399 |
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| Degrees, Minutes, Seconds | | 45° 39'40.68" N, 1° 8'23.63" W |
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| Degrees, Decimal Minutes | | 45° 39.678' N, 1° 8.394' W |
The numbers above are all the same location. We use decimal degrees expressed to four decimal places. (Adding a fifth
decimal place adds very little precision.)
When using coordinates in Google Earth, the latitude (first number) and longitude (second number) should be separated
by a comma, a space or a comma and a space.
If you keep this website and Google Earth open at the same time, you can quickly bounce back and forth, cutting
and pasting latitude and longitude coordinates to go to different locations.
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| EXAMPLES |
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Continuing with our French theme, here are two examples of typical listings on this website: a beach called Plage du Jonquet (a real place) and a naturist retreat called Domaine du Lieu Fictif (not a real place).
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Plage du Jonquet |
[A] |
43.0639, 5.8686 |
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| ↑ | ↑ | ↑ | ↑ | ↑ |
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a |
b |
c |
d |
e |
| a |
Not Linked The name of the beach is in bold red type.
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| b |
Pop-Up Window This is an authorized nude beach, as indicated by the letter "A." Just click the letter for a pop-up reminder if you forget what this means.
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| c |
Not Linked These are the coordinates you cut and paste into Google Earth to find this beach.
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| d |
Google Maps Placemarks in a New Page If you click on the red "new window" icon, all the details about a particular beach will pop up in a new Google Maps window. Once the Google Maps window opens, click each placemark for more details. Viewing information in this manner is an alternative to viewing the information in Google Earth.
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| e |
Photos Links in a New Page If you click on the green camera icon, a page of links will open. The page contains a list of links to photos of the beach. Most of these photos are hosted on large photo sharing sites such as Panoramio and Flickr. If we do not have any photo links for a particular beach, the camera icon will be purple rather than green.
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| f |
Pop-Up Window To the left of the name of each commercial establishment, there is a symbol that describes the type of establishment it is. In this case, the symbol is a yellow tent, indicating that this is a family-oriented, rustic naturist retreat. Other symbols and colors describe other types of establishments. Click on the symbol for a pop-up window with a description.
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| g |
Hyperlink Clicking on the name in blue takes you to the establishment's website. Since this is a made-up example (Domaine du Lieu Fictif = Realm of the Fictional Place), we've linked it to our own website. Below the name of the establishment is the town where it is located.
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| h |
Not Linked These are the coordinates you cut and paste into Google Earth to find this establishment. (Since this place isn't real, we've used the coordinates of Mont-St-Michel, a famous abbey in Normandy.)
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| i |
Pop-Up Window These codes let you know the major languages spoken at this establishment—French, English and Dutch, in this example. Click the letters for a pop-up window with more details.
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| j |
Pop-Up Window The word "beach" lets you know that this place abuts a beach or other waterside area where nudity is possible. Click on "beach" for a pop-up window with more details.
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